4 ms·
>Under Balmer, Microsoft was stuck on the idea that Windows and Office defined their market, and any strategy had to enforce their centrality. Corporate/busine
by nojito 6y ago
>Under Balmer, Microsoft was stuck on the idea that Windows and Office defined their market, and any strategy had to enforce their centrality.
Corporate/business revenue skyrocketed under Ballmer's reign.
The fact that MS had its hands in so many markets causes people to focus on the failures and ignore the business/enterprise/corporate success he helped MS achieve.
- dgellow 6y agoThe comment you answered to (and the part you quoted) doesn’t say anything about revenue. What are you answering to?
- fermienrico 6y agoIsn't revenue one of the main if not the top metric that define "success" in a business?
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoBallmer took over Microsoft at the height of the dotcom bubble valuations when pretty much everything in tech was overpriced. Any expectation that Microsoft's revenue would catch up to its inflated valuation in a short time frame was a great way to feel disappointed.
- easyfrag 6y agoTo that point, wasn't it Ballmer who really pushed for MS to spend $40B on Yahoo?
- jshen 6y agoIt’s really “expected future revenue” that is the main metric.
- nojito 6y agoPeople are quick to focus on the few consumer missteps of Ballmer while ignoring the huge strides MS made in the corporate/business space during his tenure.
- macspoofing 6y agoBut did it? There was technological evolution in Microsoft products for sure (Windows Servers actually became viable), but that was going to happen when you run a company with thousands of engineers. Outside of that, what were the strides MS made? They started off with enterprise/desktop dominance, and by the end of Ballmer's term, they still had enterprise/desktop dominance but missed out on pretty much every other tech trend - from digital music, to cloud, to browsers, to smartphones, to search, and on and on.
- nojito 6y agoAzure started in 08, Bing is firmly in the 2nd spot to google MS apps are the most installed on iOS and Android. People forget that Ballmer left in 2014.
- apalmer 6y agoThe real problem was Microsoft under ballmer completely utterly missed the biggest computing revolution of the last 20 years. Mobile. That put Microsoft so far behind everyone in the industry that it forced the board to remove him... He actually did a GREAT job in the enterprise space and efficiently maximizing profit in the other old school Microsoft sectors... Put it another way... When Ballmer took over Microsoft owned +70% of computing OS market, when he left they owned something like 30% and were stuck on a trajectory where today they are at like 15%... Microsoft was primarily an OS company... He more or less sunk the company
- nojito 6y agoBehind who? Go look at the largest companies by market cap or look at the fact that MS apps are the most installed apps on iOS and Android. Ballmer did amazing for MS and left a great company for Nadella.
- rat9988 6y agoHe was talking about market though. The two concepts are intimately related.