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Apr 29, 08 - 04:21 pm Comment from: MaLvado

Please keep him!

And wasn't Gates the Architect during the development of Vista?

Apr 29, 08 - 04:25 pm Comment from: NCIceman

Wow, I fully expected the source of this to be MDN trolling, but it seems several of us share this opinion.

I don't necessarily want to see Microsoft go away, but I don't think they will ever become the user-centric company they pay lip service to being...

Apr 29, 08 - 04:26 pm Comment from: NCIceman

Oh PS love the Ballmer/Uncle Fester/separated-at-birth picture!!

I can fix MSFT. It will take lot's of pain but I can straighten out MSFT's mess and make it a profitable company. It isn't hard it just requires a change in thinking, and a demand that MSFT's way isn't the only way.

of course that won't happen until after MST bleeds billions all over wall street.

Yes, keep him! We need his stupid decisionss for people to realize how pathetic Windows really is.

Double his salary and give him a billion share options if he'll stay for ten more years.

Apr 29, 08 - 04:37 pm Comment from: Mac-nugget

This really is a disservice to poor uncle Fester.

NOO! BALLMER STAYS!

i dont want to see Microsoft go, theyre ok, but i dont like all the money they have and the power they hold.

BALLMER STAYS, i like how he "runs" things

Rumour has it that Steve Jobs is paying Ballmer's salary...

Apr 29, 08 - 04:42 pm Comment from: Jubei

I think were all pretty sure that we want Ballmer to stay forever. Keep up the job he's doing now. Inject him with Botox if you have to, we need him there forever.

better


woz

I'll be happy to take the job.... but if I do, we're starting over from scratch.

Apr 29, 08 - 04:52 pm Comment from: Shinobi

where else can you get a classic baboon like Ballmer. He is doing such a great job with Microsoft.

I hope he rules Microsoft until the end of time!

or more reasonable until Ballmer's gets promoted to run a bigger Windows company in the after life....

Apr 29, 08 - 04:54 pm Comment from: HMCIV

Of course Gates will try to come back and save the company a la Steve Jobs '97. But it won't be Steve and it won't be '97.

Windows 7 will be rushed to release 3 years late and BURY anyone without 8 GHz CPUs and 32 GB of RAM. But those lucky enough to survive the upgrade will merely envy the dead. (And those of us w/ iPhones!)

Apr 29, 08 - 04:54 pm Comment from: Ampar

He's a a parasitic arachnid that attaches himself to the skin of terrestrial vertebrates.

Ballmer can't leave yet.
He still has not finished what he obviously set out to do.

Apr 29, 08 - 04:56 pm Comment from: HMCIV

@ Jubel

A Botox injected Ballmer. I may never forgive you for the ensuing nightmares.

Apr 29, 08 - 04:56 pm Comment from: Amazin1

I am nominating John Sculley to lead Microsoft!!

Apr 29, 08 - 04:57 pm Comment from: oh no my shorts

Yeesss-sssss-ss. Keee-eee-e-eep hiimm-m-m-mm.

Either that, or shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.

Apr 29, 08 - 05:01 pm Comment from: Demon

Ballmer's a sales monkey.
Please the Ballmer comparison is an insult to Uncle Fester.
Uncle Fester had style and talent. Ballmer is just an outlandish buffoon that toss office furniture when he gets a bit upset.
Uncle Fester had style he used dynamite chemicals and gun powder to blow-off steam.

MS should keep Ballmer on and maybe get him trainer and a few clowns to help complete the circus attraction they're building up there in Redmond, WA. I might consider taking the family when they finish it.

Apr 29, 08 - 05:02 pm Comment from: qka

Another article, with another great picture of Ballmer as Fester!
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/why-steve-ballmer-will-keep-chasing-yahoo/

Apple doesn't need Microsoft to spur it to be more innovative, so I don't see any reason why Microsoft should get its act together.

I wish Microsoft all the best in their current situation and I hope it lasts forever.

Apr 29, 08 - 05:11 pm Comment from: Macintosh

I couldn't imagine working at Microsoft. I cringe just thinking about the bureaucracy. Here's some points:

How many versions of Vista are there?
What color was the first Zune?
Transferring MP3 files from one Zune to another is called what?

You can only come up with such bad ideas by taking the "design by committee" approach to the extreme.

Labeling things by year was another bad idea (marketing-wise). I was just talking to a Windows drone yesterday - he said "I won't get Vista, I like Windows 2000".

My response - "Hmmmm, ya know, a lot has changed in eight years".

any CEO who would approve the name "zune" is toast.

As the second largest stockholder after Gates, Ballmer will leave when he's good and ready. I'm not anticipating any stockholder revolt any time soon because, well, those who think Windows is "good enough" have a high threshold for pain.

What he plans to do with his billions once he's "had enough" is anyone's guess. At least it's a few billion today. No telling what those shares will be worth after Microsoft collapses in on itself.

Apr 29, 08 - 05:33 pm Comment from: Jim - TIV

Dear jobs no! He's the second best thing that's ever happend to Apple. SJ should be sending him a commision on every mac sold to a pc switcher.

Apr 29, 08 - 05:34 pm Comment from: Hm...

Intriguing this Microsoft is: Losing monetary units on every venture save the one where predatory monopoly judged they were. Designed their new security features the user to annoy they did.

Severely lacking in the Schwartz they are.

Monkey Boy will be remembered as the man who presided over the beginning of Microsoft's slide.

Now the PC OEMs are displeased with him -- for being too frank:

"Some Microsoft channel partners say the software giant's recent blunt public statements about Windows Vista are putting them in difficult positions with their customers and undermining their efforts to sell [Vista] ...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has referred to Vista as "a work in progress" and hinted that Microsoft might extend the June 30 deadline for Windows XP. ...

These public comments couldn't come at a worse time for solution providers who've been dutifully chipping away at the market's calcified disdain for Vista"

http://www.crn.com/software/207402573

Ballmer doesn't know which way to jump, or what to talk up or down.

And nothing he's got even comes close to OS X. And everyone knows it.

Apr 29, 08 - 06:17 pm Comment from: ChrissyOne

Ballmer is just one of MS's problems, and remarkably, not the biggest. Decades of legacy code and slavish devotion to backward compatibility are the biggest monsters they have to slay before they can ever move forward. Jim Allchin's departure was a good first step, but the vacuum he left is almost worse than the inertia they suffered with him around. Who's championing a new direction? Certainly not Ballmer. They need someone with vision to carry the flag and fight for a redesign.
From everything I've heard (and I hear things) they are not doing this. At all. Until they fire the dead wood and get some new thinking on their engineering team, it will be more of the same, year after year.

Next up: Windows 7. Another half-assed attempt a re-inventing the marketing message, without getting down to brass tacks and building new code from the ground up. Until then, it's just another version of DOS with a UI stolen from Apple. Again.

Apr 29, 08 - 06:49 pm Comment from: Maginary

I just don't understand why they don't focus on hardware. It's MicroSOFT, not MicroHARD. There's a Viagra joke in there...

Apr 29, 08 - 06:58 pm Comment from: ndelc

I'd love to see MS, under new management, become a good kid in the sandbox. That would be better than having them go out of business.

I gotta say, that Young Frankenstein clip is absolutely one of the funniest things I've EVER seen. I hate to admit it, but I liked it better than the actual movie!

Would ANYone in this forum wanna be the one to fire Ballmer??

I can see the scene now: Ballmer running around like a real Young Frankenstein. Drooling, snarling, and yelling "Fired! Fired! Fired!".

Think flying office chairs are bad? He'd single-handedly demolish the Redmond campus.

Someone needs to make a YouTube video of this.

Apr 29, 08 - 07:43 pm Comment from: James

If he were smart, he'd step down; but his ego will never let him. I think he honestly believes throwing enough dollars at a problem will make it disappear. Man, when I think of all the money they've squandered, it's just unbelievable. I wonder what the ratio is between all of Microsoft's losses on stupid, crappy, me too ideas and the amount Gates has given to charity? They could probably have ended hunger at this point.

Any way you slice this, it's fun to watch.

A far more plausible theory:

1997 - Steve Jobs reinstated as Apple CEO

1998 - (MacWorld) - Bill Gates & Microsoft announce $150 million investment in Apple. Steve Jobs' love for games, calls on his former Atari experience by diverting the $150 million in order to fund "FrankenBallmer", a project to bring down Microsoft using their own money. Soon after, an odd screenplay makes its way around Hollywood and is quickly turned into a movie.

1999 - "Being John Malkovich" is released to theaters. Later that week, Steve Ballmer meets his demise while watching "Malkovich" in a darkened Redmond, WA movie house.

2000 - Steve, er, FrankenBallmer is named CEO of Microsoft

2001 - In his first appearance in front of a large audience, FrankenBallmer gets spooked, and the ugly "Monkey Boy" alter ego is exposed for all to see.

2001-Present - FrankenBallmer brings down Microsoft

I been say this for at least the last 3 years.... one has to wonder just what Ballmer has on Gates for Gates to put up with Ballmer crap in the first place!

No other company no matter the size would put up with Balmer's crap and pool leadership!

Hell after the nation impeaches Bush and company... some one needs to impeach Balmer!

Apr 29, 08 - 08:58 pm Comment from: Olmecmystic

Mac fans, let us not lose perspective: M$, feel free to leave that sweaty, Gene Simmons tongue-wagging, chair-throwing, anger management problem-having maniac in charge for as long as you like!

Let your internal bureaucracy take as long in getting rid of him as they took to produce (the "Where's The Wow?, Here's The Ow!") Vista and that "chrome-plated turd" called Zune(!?!). M$ should be called "WTF?"

Peace.
Olmecmystic

Keep Ballmer! It is through his efforts that M$ has created such revolutionary products as the Zune, the Bis Ass Table, Vista, etc.
M$ needs such a man of foresight and imagination.
And to boot, he is a formidable actor on stage!
Keep him PPPLLLEEEAAASSSEE!

Look it might be fun to trash MS, but why do we care? I mean we've got the best of both. Great reliable hardware and great software (OS X)
We have our own little expanding universe and if those on the dark side want to be part of it, are welcome. No need to trash those that don't To each his own. I mean really.

We all like Apple because it works. Good quality at a price we are all willing to pay for. That's about as free market capitalistic as it gets. If MS meet the needs of there Customer's then bully for them

Stockholders should sue the board for this fracas. Oh, wait... that means Gates should sue himself. Never mind....

Apr 29, 08 - 11:53 pm Comment from: Cubert

Re: Uncle Fester Picture:

NEEEIIIIIILLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Microsoft is a lame underdog? Bullshit, they're just a lame dog, and a mangy one at that.

Ooh yes! Keep Balmer! The sooner M$ goes under, the better for humanity!

...Of course, Zune Tang would be the better CEO... but shhhh!... Don't tel no one!...

Jesse Jackson a few years back took Apple's board of directors to task for not having a person of African American decent on their board.
I suggest that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton appoint themselves, Reverend Wright and Oprah as quad Micro$oft CEO's.

Apr 30, 08 - 09:46 am Comment from: Mr. Peabody

Aaa! Leave him in there. MS's slide isn't about Ballmer. Lee Iacocca wouldn't be able to help MS at this point.

Apr 30, 08 - 12:05 pm Comment from: MacRaven

Do not ever leave, Monkey Boy. We Mac Mac's love you most of all.

A little late to this thread, but WTH.

I say, one has to wonder just what Ballmer had IN Gates, for Gates to put up with Ballmer's crap.

And, what does Ballmer plan to do with his billions once he's "had enough" of MS. Well, he does enjoy killing. Maybe sell Scuds and Hunting knives.

May 01, 08 - 01:34 pm Comment from: derekcurrie

A reply I posted over at blog.wired.com:

'Innovation". Since when has this term been anything more than a smokescreen for what Microsoft really does:

1) Imitate (Windows, Zune, Word, Excel, Access, Money...)
2) Steal (Apple's QuickTime code, 1997)
3) Buy (Yahoo being a great example).
4) Slap down innovative employee developers for being unfocused.

Vista was supposed to be a great innovative, ground up rewrite of Windows. What we got instead was devolution and dehabilitated mutation. Seriously expect XP's demise to be put off, yet again, into 2009.

Ballmer is manic. His Jekyll transformations from hyperactive, sweaty, euphoric dancing Monkey Boy into terror inducing Count Dracula and back again are nuts. Why is this guy allowed to run a company when he is so obviously out of personal control?

Prediction (versus Gates' pseudo-Nostradamus statements of the obvious): Once Gates and Ballmer are gone, the culture of the company will slowly transform from that of being a computer community parasite to a realistic contributor, competitor, and yes even 'innovator', in the industry. Remove the shackles of the jackals and they may actually have a commendable future. It could happen!
;-Derek