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I don't get why Ballmer is viewed as a failure. He steadily increased revenues and income under his watch. Maybe he didn't have the "vision" thing but he was a

I don't get why Ballmer is viewed as a failure. He steadily increased revenues and income under his watch. Maybe he didn't have the "vision" thing but he was a damn good CEO if you accept that a CEO's job is to grow the company.

ProAm 8y ago
Because Microsoft is a tier 2 company these days when they used to rule almost the entire computing world with an overwhelming marketshare.
- jonknee 8y ago
  Perhaps they are on HN, but Microsoft is the third most valuable publicly traded company in the world (behind Apple and Amazon).
  - ProAm 8y ago
    They are clearly still worth a bucket of money (and still make a lot of money), I was more speaking towards technology, market capture, buzz worthy. From where they were when Ballmer took over to where they are now they are a relatively second tier company. They are playing catch up and no one looks forward to using their products.
Apocryphon 8y ago
I think it's more like morale was low within the company due to stack ranking and other bad management practices. But then we regularly hear about atrocious working conditions at Amazon, for both their fulfillment center employees and their corporate workers, while Bezos is viewed as a visionary.
blihp 8y ago
He was great at maximizing revenue and profit on the current thing but absolutely terrible at positioning them for the next thing. The problem in tech is that the next thing is often your cash cow 5-10 years out. Name pretty much any major tech trend that took off during Ballmer's tenure and look at how well Microsoft was able to capitalize on it. (think MP3 players, phones, tablets, search, social, web apps, cloud services, browsers, etc). His stated strategy was 'fast follower' and we saw how well that worked out. Microsoft has become IBM in that they are mostly legacy tech now and virtually no startups use their stuff in a significant way which doesn't bode well for where they'll be when the windows/office gravy train stops rolling. Their new CEO has been working hard to fix things (they're no longer a complete embarassment with browsers and cloud services, for example) but Ballmer left them in a pretty inexcusable position given the resources he had at his disposal. I actually think the Cook/Ballmer comparison is apropos as I see a lot of similarities going on. It's not about where the company is today, it's where the company is likely to be 10 years from now.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I think that's the destiny of any large corporation. I don't feel very inspired by Google or Apple either these days. Amazon is starting to suck too.
CamperBob2 8y ago
He (barely) kept up with the rest of the industry, while dooming Microsoft to irrelevance in the up-and-coming mobile market. I don't blame Ballmer for that as much as I blame the board of directors. It's Ballmer's fault that he went on national TV and laughed at the iPhone, but it's the board's fault that Ballmer still had a job when he stepped off the plane from New York. And Windows users like myself were certainly in better hands under Ballmer than they are under Nadella. I do have to give him credit for that. Episodes like the Vista launch seemed like critical missteps at the time, but in retrospect he could have done a lot worse.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "And Windows users like myself were certainly in better hands under Ballmer than they are under Nadella" My company does a medical device with Windows and since the release of Windows 10 we feel very unwelcome on Windows 10. Their release cycle and licensing really sucks so to me Windows is done as a platform for custom applications.

ProAm 8y ago

Because Microsoft is a tier 2 company these days when they used to rule almost the entire computing world with an overwhelming marketshare.

jonknee 8y ago
Perhaps they are on HN, but Microsoft is the third most valuable publicly traded company in the world (behind Apple and Amazon).
- ProAm 8y ago
  They are clearly still worth a bucket of money (and still make a lot of money), I was more speaking towards technology, market capture, buzz worthy. From where they were when Ballmer took over to where they are now they are a relatively second tier company. They are playing catch up and no one looks forward to using their products.

Apocryphon 8y ago

I think it's more like morale was low within the company due to stack ranking and other bad management practices. But then we regularly hear about atrocious working conditions at Amazon, for both their fulfillment center employees and their corporate workers, while Bezos is viewed as a visionary.

blihp 8y ago

He was great at maximizing revenue and profit on the current thing but absolutely terrible at positioning them for the next thing. The problem in tech is that the next thing is often your cash cow 5-10 years out. Name pretty much any major tech trend that took off during Ballmer's tenure and look at how well Microsoft was able to capitalize on it. (think MP3 players, phones, tablets, search, social, web apps, cloud services, browsers, etc). His stated strategy was 'fast follower' and we saw how well that worked out. Microsoft has become IBM in that they are mostly legacy tech now and virtually no startups use their stuff in a significant way which doesn't bode well for where they'll be when the windows/office gravy train stops rolling. Their new CEO has been working hard to fix things (they're no longer a complete embarassment with browsers and cloud services, for example) but Ballmer left them in a pretty inexcusable position given the resources he had at his disposal. I actually think the Cook/Ballmer comparison is apropos as I see a lot of similarities going on. It's not about where the company is today, it's where the company is likely to be 10 years from now.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I think that's the destiny of any large corporation. I don't feel very inspired by Google or Apple either these days. Amazon is starting to suck too.

CamperBob2 8y ago

He (barely) kept up with the rest of the industry, while dooming Microsoft to irrelevance in the up-and-coming mobile market. I don't blame Ballmer for that as much as I blame the board of directors. It's Ballmer's fault that he went on national TV and laughed at the iPhone, but it's the board's fault that Ballmer still had a job when he stepped off the plane from New York. And Windows users like myself were certainly in better hands under Ballmer than they are under Nadella. I do have to give him credit for that. Episodes like the Vista launch seemed like critical missteps at the time, but in retrospect he could have done a lot worse.

maxxxxx 8y ago
"And Windows users like myself were certainly in better hands under Ballmer than they are under Nadella" My company does a medical device with Windows and since the release of Windows 10 we feel very unwelcome on Windows 10. Their release cycle and licensing really sucks so to me Windows is done as a platform for custom applications.