Steve Ballmer's Big-Time Error: Not Resigning Years Ago

Nerval's Lobster writes "Any number of executives could take Ballmer's place, including a few he unceremoniously kicked to the curb over the years. Whoever steps into that CEO role, however, faces a much greater challenge than if Ballmer had quietly resigned several years ago. Ballmer famously missed the boat on tablets and smartphones; Windows 8 isn't selling as well as Microsoft expected; and on Websites and blogs such as Mini-Microsoft (which had a brilliant posting about Ballmer's departure), employees complain bitterly about the company's much-maligned stack-ranking system, its layers of bureaucracy, and its inability to innovate. Had Ballmer left years ago, replaced by someone with the ability to more keenly anticipate markets, the company would probably be in much better shape to face its coming challenges. In its current form, Microsoft often feels like it's struggling in the wake of Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook." In an interview with ZDNet, Ballmer said his biggest regret as CEO was in how Windows Vista was developed. Opinions are divided on both the nature of his resignation and what it will mean for Microsoft. While the stock price is up, BusinessWeek and others suggest the purpose of the transition is to find somebody better able to anticipate future trends. That would certainly lead to more organizational changes within Microsoft, something employees suffered through just last month. Ben Kuchera at the Penny Arcade Report points out that this could mean Microsoft will try to re-enter markets it has abandoned. He asks the company to "stay the hell away from PC gaming."

Also, not breaking up the company

[Anonymous Coward]

Long ago (around the first IE anti-trust lawsuit installment) I heard the argument that breaking Microsoft into separate companies along the OS, Backofffice, Office, Database, and Internet (this was before XBox) areas would be best for the company's overall innovation and net profit. Ballmer never did that, either.

The theory was each element would be more free to do what it needed to do for itself, without the weird requirements to interconnect with the software and rules of the other groups, and as separate companies more of an "invisible hand of the market" could guide decisions instead of management. Collaboration and interoperation would still be allowed and encouraged because the sub-companies would all be wholly-owned subsidiaries, but management control would not span any two of them.

This break-up theory would address a number of things Ballmer seems to have said he was trying to fix over the years.

Re:$20B the value of Steve Ballmer leaving

[BasilBrush]

Just because you disagree with his opinion doesn't mean that you can speak for "the people playing the stock market". All of which have their own set of opinions that are not the same as yours.

I suggest that far more investors than you imagine know who the CEO of Microsoft is, and blame him in particular for it's disappointing performance. But that's just my opinion.

Re:"Stay away from PC Gaming" Really?

[Lumpy]

"Windows 8 is better than people think"

No, n o it's not. I have yet to find a SINGLE person that says "OMG Windows 8 is so much better than Windows 7!! I get calls constantly from friends and others asking how they can install windows 7 on their new laptop. They do NOT want windows 8, and the morons that run Microsoft refuse to listen to the bulk of the customers.

But then they also ignored everyone with Windows Phone and Surface... their other two utter failures that are not selling.

Re:Vista

[spire3661]

Just no. Intel's cheapest x86 chip is the Celeron 1610. It is unbelievably powerful for its cost and TDP and runs Win 8 perfectly. I have it in several DVRs recording 4 HD channels per. It even compresses to mp4 at about double realtime(takes 1 hour to compress a 2 hour movie). You would do better by mandating SSDs for Win 8 than forcing an i5.

Re:Vista

[spire3661]

No need to take my word when citation is so easy.

http://ark.intel.com/products/71072/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G1610-2M-Cache-2_60-GHz [intel.com]

Its not on the spec sheet, but it has a 6 EU (execution Unit) Intel GPU, roughly equal to Intel HD2500. Not spectacular, but i played Bioshock:Infinite on it at 720p/low and got 33 fps in the benchmark.

Re:Vista

[Zoromo]

Another just no. You are continually referring to a current CPU released in 2013. Which has no relevance whatsoever to the point the poster above you are replying to makes:

Not so much how it was developed, but that it was released before it was really ready and a log of people were conned into buying Vista Ready PCs which had a crappy inferior Intel chipset unable to fully support. Microsoft knew and still proceeded. I still have the PDF with all the emails.

Vista was released on Jan. 30/2007. Intel at that time had CPUs available and released with integrated graphics tech that could not actually handle the video performance needed for fully running the versions of Vista installed on them. Despite the fact PCs were sold with those CPUs and came with the "Vista Capable PC" label. That's the problem.