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People blame Steve Ballmer but I think he did great stuff. He built the huge enterprise salesforce and got Microsoft a leg in the enterprise, where margins are

People blame Steve Ballmer but I think he did great stuff. He built the huge enterprise salesforce and got Microsoft a leg in the enterprise, where margins are much higher and consumers much less fickle. He also chose a very good successor and removed all the old timers who would have made trouble for Nadella (Muglia, Sinofsky to name a few). Microsoft went from mostly an OS+ consumer software company to this enterprise gorilla which will now have an IBMesque lifetime (meaning will survive for very very long) regardless of whether their projects are very good or not. Sure he couldn't beat the iPhone, but the iPhone is the most successful consumer electronics product of all time.

teknopaul 2y ago
I have a chart I call "the Ballmer peak" which is the huge trough in earning that accompanied Ballmer's time at the helm.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  No, you don't have that chart. Earnings went up under Ballmer.
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    He didn’t say the chart was accurate, just that he has it :)
    - crop_rotation 2y ago
      By that kind of logic almost any argument can be made masquerading as the truth :)
      - mattmaroon 2y ago
        It’s a more humorous “no true Scotsman”.
- unethical_ban 2y ago
  The Ballmer peak is a theory of coding productivity as a function of alcohol consumption. https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    Anecdotally I’ve found that I often can’t get started on a new piece of work because for every possible solution I imagine all the possible ways it could go wrong. After a glass of wine I lose my hang-ups and I can “just get started” and bang out some code. I suspect it’s the same as the well-known “social lubricant” effect of alcohol, where it eases anxiety and uninhibits nervous people. However, while I’ve noticed it gets me going it has the same deleterious effects as in social contexts: the code I end up writing is not as clever as I thought it was the night before. No matter, had sex! I mean… got an MVP working that can be nurtured into a relationship… I mean product.
    - justsomehnguy 2y ago
      I have a very fond fond memories of codind near the that peak. Somehow I can't replicate it for the years and I have a couple of projects in a dire need of that spirit insight. sigh
Max-q 2y ago
Ballmer is a good used car salesman. He sold what they had, but new products suffered under his leadership. Just like Apple stopped inventing after Jobs. Nadella built new product categories for the company. I think two more years with Ballmer would have made the the prophecy valid.
- crop_rotation 2y ago
  What new product categories did Nadella built that Ballmer didn't start?. Azure was started and then prioritized under Ballmer. Office for iOS was built under Ballmer but not announced to give Nadella a quick win on his start. Ballmer set his replacement very well on so many levels. > Ballmer is a good used car salesman. Ballmer was a very very good salesman. The reason Azure or all these new shiny MSFT products (e.g. teams) have a leg is because Ballmer already sold AD to almost every corp out there. Microsoft went from being 0 in enterprise to bigger than anyone else and that is now the main money printer and also the future of the company. One thing everyone forgets is Nadella was nowhere to be found few years before becoming CEO. Ballmer made a very very good successor choice elevating Nadella quickly in few years.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    The pivot to Linux on Azure, WSL, becoming again a Java vendor, adoption of Rust, FOSS culture on DevDiv, VSCode eating VS licenses... On the other hand, Balmer would never allowed Windows development experience to be as bad nowadays.
    - thebetatester 2y ago
      Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
    - Amezarak 2y ago
      > WSL, becoming again a Java vendor, adoption of Rust, FOSS culture on DevDiv, VSCode eating VS licenses... These are all nice things for developers, but I don't think they are actually good for Microsoft in the long-term or their bottom line in the short term. At least not the way they've been executed. If anything, the treatment of Microsoft's older cash cows under Nadella has been disastrous, essentially throwing goodwill and money away - e.g., the quality of and feature development in Windows.

teknopaul 2y ago

I have a chart I call "the Ballmer peak" which is the huge trough in earning that accompanied Ballmer's time at the helm.

danielmarkbruce 2y ago
No, you don't have that chart. Earnings went up under Ballmer.
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  He didn’t say the chart was accurate, just that he has it :)
  - crop_rotation 2y ago
    By that kind of logic almost any argument can be made masquerading as the truth :)
    - mattmaroon 2y ago
      It’s a more humorous “no true Scotsman”.
unethical_ban 2y ago
The Ballmer peak is a theory of coding productivity as a function of alcohol consumption. https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  Anecdotally I’ve found that I often can’t get started on a new piece of work because for every possible solution I imagine all the possible ways it could go wrong. After a glass of wine I lose my hang-ups and I can “just get started” and bang out some code. I suspect it’s the same as the well-known “social lubricant” effect of alcohol, where it eases anxiety and uninhibits nervous people. However, while I’ve noticed it gets me going it has the same deleterious effects as in social contexts: the code I end up writing is not as clever as I thought it was the night before. No matter, had sex! I mean… got an MVP working that can be nurtured into a relationship… I mean product.
  - justsomehnguy 2y ago
    I have a very fond fond memories of codind near the that peak. Somehow I can't replicate it for the years and I have a couple of projects in a dire need of that spirit insight. sigh

Max-q 2y ago

Ballmer is a good used car salesman. He sold what they had, but new products suffered under his leadership. Just like Apple stopped inventing after Jobs. Nadella built new product categories for the company. I think two more years with Ballmer would have made the the prophecy valid.

crop_rotation 2y ago
What new product categories did Nadella built that Ballmer didn't start?. Azure was started and then prioritized under Ballmer. Office for iOS was built under Ballmer but not announced to give Nadella a quick win on his start. Ballmer set his replacement very well on so many levels. > Ballmer is a good used car salesman. Ballmer was a very very good salesman. The reason Azure or all these new shiny MSFT products (e.g. teams) have a leg is because Ballmer already sold AD to almost every corp out there. Microsoft went from being 0 in enterprise to bigger than anyone else and that is now the main money printer and also the future of the company. One thing everyone forgets is Nadella was nowhere to be found few years before becoming CEO. Ballmer made a very very good successor choice elevating Nadella quickly in few years.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  The pivot to Linux on Azure, WSL, becoming again a Java vendor, adoption of Rust, FOSS culture on DevDiv, VSCode eating VS licenses... On the other hand, Balmer would never allowed Windows development experience to be as bad nowadays.
  - thebetatester 2y ago
    Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
  - Amezarak 2y ago
    > WSL, becoming again a Java vendor, adoption of Rust, FOSS culture on DevDiv, VSCode eating VS licenses... These are all nice things for developers, but I don't think they are actually good for Microsoft in the long-term or their bottom line in the short term. At least not the way they've been executed. If anything, the treatment of Microsoft's older cash cows under Nadella has been disastrous, essentially throwing goodwill and money away - e.g., the quality of and feature development in Windows.