To be honest a lot of the damage had been done before Ballmer was CEO. The alienation of web developers was well under way, proprietary lock in was a major con

To be honest a lot of the damage had been done before Ballmer was CEO. The alienation of web developers was well under way, proprietary lock in was a major concern for enterprise and they had already painted themselves in a corner by eschewing the web in favour of a desktop only strategy.