I think it's a disservice to Ballmer to not consider that every business goes up and down. This chart (courtesy turar) is the real story -> http://ycharts.com/

I think it's a disservice to Ballmer to not consider that every business goes up and down. This chart (courtesy turar) is the real story -> http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/net_income#compCos=AAPL,GOOG&zoom=10 http://ycharts.com/companies/MSFT/net_income#compCos=AAPL,GO... It just bothers all the Silicon Valley tech press that Microsoft continues to thrash its competitors. Google makes money via search. Apple started off with fucking mp3 players and now makes 'post-PC' devices. It just bothers SiValley that no one can touch the Windows domination. Microsoft made $5 billion+ in profit last quarter. The CEO who's been in charge for the last 10 years should be given a prize for surviving and growing the company's profits. A new emerging company will always have more room to grow. If you consider each company at its core competency they are all dominating. Google has 64% or so search share. Bing+yahoo get 30% or so. Microsoft has 90%+ desktop OS share. After 16 or 20 continuous quarters of growth Mac is still less than 10%. Apple is dominating smartphones (though Android might slow it down, notably without making any profit itself - unless you want to count it as a defence for mobile search). It's also dominating Tablets and trying to change things - because it doesn't want to fight Microsoft head-on in PCs - Just too difficult given Microsoft's advantages. So each company is dominating its niche and trying to find ways to make its niche dominate the entire tech landscape. Microsoft still being so dominant and the success of Windows 7 point to Sinofsky and Ballmer being God level. Growing profits from a couple of billion a quarter to $5 billion to $6 billion a quarter is extremely impressive. Apple's growth is more impressive - However, that doesn't mean Microsoft's profits are unimpressive and it'd be foolish to take your personal dislike of Microsoft as a reason to discount some really solid work by CEO Ballmer. Finally, Ballmer's first duty is to Microsoft and himself and Gate and Microsoft people. Who fucking cares what the vultures of Wall Street and shareholders who don't do squat think.