Amen
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
41–50 of 784 posts
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#42Finally, it was time for Ballmer to go.
Exactly. My reaction, and I imagine everyone's reaction, upon reading the headline was, "finally."
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#43It must really hurt the self-esteem of a CEO when they announce retirement and the stock goes up. That being said, it's about time. Microsoft has had too much misdirection lately and really needs to either pull it together or drop out of some of its markets.
Given that Ballmer has ~400 million shares of MSFT, I think the billion dollar increase in paper net worth probably softens the blow.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#44If you think about it, what does the "within 12 months" part even mean? Like, if the deadline hits, they'll just take whoever they can get?
> If you think about it, what does the "within 12 months" part even mean?
I'm not sure what part about that is confusing. In case you are ESL it means that Ballmer will retire before one year has elapsed.
> Like, if the deadline hits, they'll just take whoever they can get?
Running one of the largest, profitable and most prestigious companies in the world is a pretty good job. I'm pretty certain that there will be no shortage of qualified people willing to become the CEO:)
No one makes an announcement like this without planning ahead, they've already got either a new CEO or a very short list of people who they've already vetted.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#45He'll be remembered as a terrible CEO. Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000. In the 13 years since then, Apple has experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Google and Facebook have gone from being obscure startups to giants. The tech industry went through the bubble, recovered, and today is stronger than ever. What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. A MSFT sh…
If an MSFT share was worth 35 when he took over (at the top of the bubble) and it's the same now then it does not mean (at all) that he was a crap CEO. MSFT still remains one of the most important tech companies ever, that's not a small feat. I don't think that he's an extremely brilliant CEO, but tech companies come and go, and MSFT is still close to the top. Even if everyone in the media is 100% focused on mobile now.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#46This story is Developing, Developing, Developing...
Or, perhaps: Retirement! Retirement! Retirement!
(to the cheers of investors)
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#47He'll be remembered as a terrible CEO. Ballmer took over as CEO in 2000. In the 13 years since then, Apple has experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Google and Facebook have gone from being obscure startups to giants. The tech industry went through the bubble, recovered, and today is stronger than ever. What happened to Microsoft? While the rest of the tech sector exploded and prospered, it stayed still. A MSFT sh…
Microsoft had already lost all of its momentum by 2000. The antitrust case was a major distraction and by the time it was over Microsoft had a badly damaged brand image that has never recovered. Gates overreached during his later years and made the company too insular, leading to them missing out on all of the advances to come.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#48Huge news! Let's see what happens to the stock today. It edged up a little at the end of the day, suggesting that perhaps news was getting out. It's up 8% in premarket trading. [1] One interesting thing to note from that chart is their Beta (a measure of link to market volatility) is less than 1, which is very low for a high tech stock. It basically means that the market views them as less volatile to market conditio…
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Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#49Huge news! Let's see what happens to the stock today. It edged up a little at the end of the day, suggesting that perhaps news was getting out. It's up 8% in premarket trading. [1] One interesting thing to note from that chart is their Beta (a measure of link to market volatility) is less than 1, which is very low for a high tech stock. It basically means that the market views them as less volatile to market conditio…
I'm not sure your description of Beta is accurate. Correctly if I'm wrong, but Beta is a measure of volatility in correlation with the broader market, not a measure of volatility in of itself.
There are plenty of stocks that have beta Having a low beta simply means its price isn't as correlated with the overall market. An example, Netflix has a beta < 1 but is extremely volatile.
Re: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months
#50Now the question is, whoever will be next at the helm, will he / she be able to reverse directions and steer Microsoft into more relevant and fruitful territories. Ballmer's Microsoft was always late to the party, overseeing important technology trends and society transformations out of, I'd call it a mix of ignorance and arrogance; maybe they were also too blended by their previous successes. The way he dismissed iP…
I'm skeptical about Microsoft recovering. They clearly missed the mobile revolution. But let's hope they'll be able to tackle directly the next challenges (wearable computing, etc.)
They also clearly missed the internet revolution, but managed to recover. Big companies have trouble adapting to new paradigms, but it's not impossible for them to do it, especially when they have so many resources at their disposal.