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Ballmer signed off on the Azure investment over 10 years ago. Today I believe that's their biggest revenue stream alongside Office perhaps. Big picture, Ballm
by danielovichdk 8y ago
Ballmer signed off on the Azure investment over 10 years ago.
Today I believe that's their biggest revenue stream alongside Office perhaps.
Big picture, Ballmer was a huge success.
- twblalock 8y agoIt's arguable that Ballmer would not have run Azure the way Nadella has, e.g. embracing Linux and open source, and it would not have been as successful. The problem with Microsoft under Ballmer was execution. For example, they saw the potential of the iPod (eventually), but all they came up with was the Zune. They saw the potential of smartphones (eventually) but did not execute well on the OS, the app store, the hardware, and the marketing.
- scarface74 8y agoMicrosoft was in the smart phone market years before the iPhone was introduced. It was a failure of execution not vision. By the time the Zune came out, the iPhone/iPod Touch were right around the corner.
- danielovichdk 8y agoEmbracing OSS also started under Ballmer. But also especially with Scott Guthrie, and his role as a leader for the future Micrsoosoft developer platform . I don't know if Guthrie hired the likes of Scott Hanselman, Phil Haack, Mads Kristensen etc. But they have IMO made a huge impact, but internally and externally for the OSS push. It's a big corporation and internally the fights had been big, becasue a lot of people don't understand how to sell free software. Just to give an example.