“Exactly 10 years ago this week, Bill Gates stepped down as chief executive of Microsoft, installing Steve Ballmer in his place,” Nicole Kobie reports for IT Pro. “That decade hasn’t been kind to Microsoft. In the past 10 years, Microsoft’s stock has dived 53 per cent – a slide that would have seen many other chief execs knocked from the position pretty quickly.”
“There’s nowhere else to start, really,” Kobie reports. “Sure, acting like a lunatic on stage hardly explains a 53 per cent stock prices spiral (one assumes, though maybe it does) but it’s hard to escape that one of the most enduring images of Ballmer is the big bald sweaty man hoarsely chanting ‘developers, developers, developers.'”
Kobie reports, “Or there’s the time, to mark Microsoft’s 25th anniversary, that he danced like a monkey across a stage for 45 full seconds (and looking like he pulls something halfway through it). Nearly a minute, as a monkey – this from the head honcho at one of the biggest, best known firms in the world.”
Kobie reports, “While dancing across stage like a monkey is one way to get attention, launching good products is probably the preferred method.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Don’t forget this one:
And no Ballmer retrospective would be complete without these two:
Excerpts from a BusinessWeek interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004:
Steve Jobs: Apple had a monopoly on the graphical user interface for almost 10 years. That’s a long time. And how are monopolies lost? Think about it. Some very good product people invent some very good products, and the company achieves a monopoly. But after that, the product people aren’t the ones that drive the company forward anymore. It’s the marketing guys or the ones who expand the business into Latin America or whatever. Because what’s the point of focusing on making the product even better when the only company you can take business from is yourself? So a different group of people start to move up. And who usually ends up running the show? The sales guy… Then one day, the monopoly expires for whatever reason. But by then the best product people have left, or they’re no longer listened to. And so the company goes through this tumultuous time, and it either survives or it doesn’t.
BusinessWeek: Is this common in the industry?
Steve Jobs: Look at Microsoft — who’s running Microsoft?
BusinessWeek: Steve Ballmer.
Steve Jobs: Right, the sales guy. Case closed.
Source: The Seed of Apple’s Innovation
As always, glasses up: May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes!
No matter how many times I see those videos they still blow my mind.
Happy Anniversary Steve! Best wishes from your friends at the focus group.
http://dilbert.com/fast/2010-01-14/
A salesman should not be allowed to become the king of their empire. May American business learn from this.
Without someone selling something to someone else, no one would have a job. The issue is not that he is a salesman, as your own livelihood depends on a salesman, but that he is a poor manager. Steve Jobs is a salesman, just a damn good one.
Steve Ballmer is far and away one of the best things to ever happen to Apple. That, combined with Steve Jobs’ return pretty much gave Apple a MUCH easier ride through the last 10 years (just imagine if someone competent had actually been in charge of Micro$oft! I shudder at the thought…
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What’s even scarier is that MS has done as well as it has over this time period. I still don’t get why the Mac doesn’t own 70% of the computer market. Well, maybe one day (but Windows 7 is, sadly, a lot closer to the Mac and them keeping their market dominance- I would have thought that Vista would have driven tens of millions to Apple- I guess there’s no underestimating the shortsightedness of computer buyers or MS CEOs).
Ballmer sweats too much
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OBallmer is an example of what is wrong with all the other computer software and hardware companies. Exec with no talent.
The only other job this monkey could do is run for public office.
Internet Czar, Oballmer — What fun…
Microsoft has never had a CEO who has known a thing about technology. Approximately ten years ago the original microsoft business plan reached the end of its relevance. By business plan, that is to say, all the corrupt, predatory contract and negotiation practices which Bill learned on his daddy’s knee. Ballmer’s skill set is that of a car dealer sales manager, but here he is managing the decomposition of the World’s largest corpse.
*raises glass*
May he remain CEO for as long as it takes…
*tink*
MaWo: ‘further’. hahahahaha…
Thanks for all the wonderful years, Steve B.; here’s to another 10!
I’m sorry, but isn’t Steve Jobs the sales guy…he didn’t exactly let Woz run the company
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He’s a MUCH better salesman than ballmer or pretty much anyone in any industry….but um…he’s still a sales guy.
His ego is enormous. I suspect he’d rather sink in what he thinks is a fight than quit.
If that’s the case, more power to ’em.
May M$ sales curve always be downward and never asymptotic.
just my $0.02
“Steve Ballmer hits 10 years as Microsoft CEO” … with a resounding S P L A T ! !. May he reign “just long enough”.
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Does Steve Jobs think he is a tech geek? An “ideas” guy, for certain. Able to pull a concept out of his hat at a moment’s notice and drive the engineers until it’s a world beater, yeah. Able to see what some other crew built, something that they marketed as Good Enough, and realize where it fell short – and how to fix it. But an engineer? Hey, he’s amazing … let’s not expect the whole package.
@Mark,
You must be a young one,,,, or a troll.
“
He’s a MUCH better salesman than ballmer or pretty much anyone in any industry….but um…he’s still a sales guy.”
No, While Steve did some “selling ” to industry in the early years, he is the technology driver not the “used software” dealer. A big difference. However, if you cannot see that difference, it would be a waste to explain it to you. Buy a PC, all the other lemmings do… er make it a netbook, cause almost good enough is just darn great.
Right?
Just a thought,
en
@mark
Steve Jobs cofounder of Apple, founder of NeXT Computer, Owner of Pixar, to return as the CEO of Apple and turn the company around makes him much more than a salesman. Apple’s stock is up 2351% since the return of Jobs. Ballmer is just a salesman. Microsoft’s stock is down 47% since Ballmer has taken the reins.
Yes, Jobs is a sales guy, the thing is though, he only wants to sell what he thinks is the best product and he makes sure that he gets that. It’s a good thing he’s not a tech person, he’s a user and if he is handed a prototype that he can figure out in 30 seconds then it’s crap and he hands is back.
Young Frankensteve may just be my favorite Internet video of all time.
10 More Years! 10 More Years!
Yep, in the last 10 years Apple stock is up 735% and MSFT is down 45%. Ouch!
That means, Apple was worth around $22.5B while MSFT was worth $400B. Now Apple is the 4th largest company based in the US, worth $189B, and MSFT is the 2nd largest, worth $272B.
@Ken C
Not bad for a company with 7% market share and climbing.
What has Microsoft done lately? Oh right, Xbox.
My guess is after Apple finishes with computers, phones, tablets they will
move on to televisions and , wait for it, gaming.
Then how much will MSFT be worth?
We really need an acronym for the Steve Ballmer toast. Something like the one for Michael’s Dell’s quote about closing down the company and giving back the money. So how about:
May Steve Ballmer remain Microsoft’s CEO for as long as it takes = MSBRMCFALAIT
When Microsoft was cruising to great numbers every quarter on dominance of the desktop OS market, a chimp could have been running the company and no one would have noticed anything was amiss. Now that mediocrity doesn’t get the same yardage in smartphones and portable entertainment devices, MS is forced to compete on merit and the competence of its products, and the flaws of the man on high become readily apparent, flaws so endemic to the entire workforce of a company that has done little innovation of its own to earn its riches — hubris, arrogance, complacency. Long may he rule.
Love you Ballmer. May you remain in charge of Microsoft forever!!!
“Come on, give it up for me!”