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

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.