4 ms·
Microsoft stock was flat under Ballmer because of hangover from the massive dotcom bust in 2000 and the DOJ consent decree which didn't expire until 2011. It w
by ThrowawayB7 6y ago
Microsoft stock was flat under Ballmer because of hangover from the massive dotcom bust in 2000 and the DOJ consent decree which didn't expire until 2011. It would've been hard for anyone else to do better.
- btilly 6y agoThe DOJ consent decree was toothless and a non-issue. The one that hurt Microsoft was the EU decrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._Commission may remind you of that. That said, the one thing Ballmer did right is that he took on the difficult problem of locking down Microsoft products on a security front. This was a hard and thankless task, but absolutely necessary in the long run.
- ThrowawayB7 6y agoYou're correct about the EU decrees; I should have mentioned those as well.
- CamperBob2 6y agoThat was Gates.
- btilly 6y agoHard to tell. Ballmer became CEO in 2000. But Bill Gates continued being involved in day to day operations until 2009. Considering that Microsoft got religious about security in the 2000s, and this was a shift in corporate policy, I give credit to Ballmer.
- ThrowawayB7 6y agoHe's talking about the TwC initiative, which came from Gates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustworthy_computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustworthy_computing. Even after stepping down as CEO, Gates maintained an informal role at MS as an ideas guy for a number of years.
- btilly 6y agoThe usual tendency is to give credit to the person who comes up with the idea, and the blame to the person who implements it. But ideas are a dime a dozen. I give credit not to coming up with the idea, but to actually putting in the elbow grease. And there is no question that Ballmer put a lot of elbow grease into keeping the initiative going.