Culturally everyone I've spoken to who has seen both Ballmer era and later Nadella complains how terrible the company was to work for back then
Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#112Baller was the right CEO for 90s Microsoft up through about 2002. He was the wrong CEO for 2010-onward Microsoft but it took a chunk of years for the board to realize that.
Gates was CEO during the 90s.
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the company has more strategic resources than a VC, and has need to defend existing businesses. MS should've been able to simply just extend their OS monopoly into all platforms and all architectures, but they didn't, and to a vast swath of the world have become irrelevant, and worse, have lost their ability to become relevant. It's a decline from being the monopolist to simply a player, sure they executed we…
> MS should've been able to simply just extend their OS monopoly into all platforms and all architectures, but they didn't, and to a vast swath of the world have become irrelevant, and worse, have lost their ability to become relevant. Microsoft is, pretty famously, on the receiving end of one of the most significant antitrust judgments in modern history. Choosing to further a monopoly seems that it would be a phenom…
> > MS should've been able to simply just extend their OS monopoly into all platforms and all architectures, but they didn't, and to a vast swath of the world have become irrelevant, and worse, have lost their ability to become relevant.
> Microsoft is, pretty famously, on the receiving end of one of the most significant antitrust judgments in modern history. Choosing to further a monopoly seems that it would be a phenomenally bad decision for the company.
They tried and failed to extend their OS to other platforms and architectures many times. That they weren't successful wasn't due to some big brained decision to avoid antitrust issues. They just couldn't execute.
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the company has more strategic resources than a VC, and has need to defend existing businesses. MS should've been able to simply just extend their OS monopoly into all platforms and all architectures, but they didn't, and to a vast swath of the world have become irrelevant, and worse, have lost their ability to become relevant. It's a decline from being the monopolist to simply a player, sure they executed we…
> MS should've been able to simply just extend their OS monopoly into all platforms and all architectures, but they didn't, and to a vast swath of the world have become irrelevant, and worse, have lost their ability to become relevant. Microsoft is, pretty famously, on the receiving end of one of the most significant antitrust judgments in modern history. Choosing to further a monopoly seems that it would be a phenom…
I don't buy the "MS purposefully let IE die to avoid anti-trust" story. Ballmer was an enterprise sales guy, no wonder his enterprise software business did great, IE lacked focus and died. Just keeping IE around, they didn't have to kill Google, but just keeping it around would've been interesting in 2020 as they can conceivably use it to move onto rivals. Similarly, windows phone didn't die because of anti-trust but because of Ballmer failure. Windows server is a fail because of Ballmer. Yes MS should've been a ~6T company today. Operating systems were their territory and Ballmer lost ground. There are 6ish other major battlefields: search, e-commerce, social, consumer devices, enterprise software, cloud. Ballmer lost 4/6 despite major advantages going into the last 4 of these.
I'll give credit to Ballmer for being early enough on supporting Azure where it's ahead of GCP, but for how well Azure is doing now that's on Nadella.
Am I supposed to give Ballmer credit for Bing? I'm not going to do so. With enough money any CEO would've been able to crank out a Bing (Same way I'm not impressed by Tim Cook's Apple Watch).
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#115"When Ballmer became CEO in January 2000, Microsoft's stock was around $53. When he stepped down in February 2014, it was around $38." By that metric, no he wasn't underrated.
Msft had a stock split during that time.
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if Windows is even their flagship app any more. I think people will give up Windows before they give up Excel. And they might not even notice a different OS, so long as it had the same file manager. In fact Excel is the last non-FOSS app that I still use, even if sporadically.
Don't forget gaming. Gaming on Linux is possible but Windows still has the advantage in both software and hardware support. I particularly like the video series from LinusTechTips where they try to use Linux as their daily driver because it is very telling. They manage to do stuff, but it isn't great. I find it interesting because it is done from the point of view of computer enthusiasts but not IT professionals or p…
I don't think calling gaming on linux "possible" gives it the justice it deserves, with the arrival of the Steam Deck and all the improvements Valve contributed to the upstream. The experience is practically _seamless_.
I agree though that linux _on desktop_ is pretty janky, or at least it always was for me, having tried daily driving numerous distros.
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#117Having spent some time at the Microsoft campus, I can tell you this is basically the consensus view from employees today. Ballmer was not a cool, trendy, or fun CEO who people rallied behind - but he more or less "got the job done". He was the captain of a massive ship with a turning radius the size of a continent guiding it through icebergs. Azure's success was specifically set in motion under Ballmer. Owed to the f…
do you think if azure would have even _happened_ if mr. jeffrey snover was not tenacious enough ?
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ballmer's tenure started with XP and eventually gave us Windows 7. Nadella gave us 10 and 11. Though 10 was largely developed under Ballmer before its initial launch, it's been under Nadella's stewardship ever since. I'll take Ballmer, thanks.
Ballmer also gave us the maligned Windows Vista and Windows 8. Microsoft has also been way more open source friendly during Nadella's tenure, whereas Ballmer was openly hostile to FOSS. I'll take Nadella, thanks (although he should fix his user-hostile spyware).
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Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#119I'm not informed enough to rebut this, and don't want to be quoted in the follow-up article that suggests HN is still too dumb to get the genius of Ballmer, but here's my take. It's only the footnote of the article that mentions Ballmer's "stage persona". I think that's the important point, and I would add that his "interview persona" might have been even worse. Back then, he was quoted as saying insanely dumb shit a…
Brief data transmissions being called "squirts" is common, and was more common at the time.
Re: Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
#120Having spent some time at the Microsoft campus, I can tell you this is basically the consensus view from employees today. Ballmer was not a cool, trendy, or fun CEO who people rallied behind - but he more or less "got the job done". He was the captain of a massive ship with a turning radius the size of a continent guiding it through icebergs. Azure's success was specifically set in motion under Ballmer. Owed to the f…
Azure happened because of Nadella (who led the project) despite Ballmer.