Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to retire within 12 months

Post by BudVVeezer » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

Post by wehadfun » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

lmg643 wrote: post #78

rdl wrote: post #33

Since the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a huge percentage of its wealth still in MSFT stock, I think Bill Gates can make a case to himself that picking the best possible leader for MSFT will save hundreds of thousands of marginal children. If I were him, there would be two candidates: Qi Lu (insider, obvious choice), or, for the ultimate in turnaround ballerdom: Ben Horowitz (from a16z). Either would be a vas…

i wonder if they are going to try and preserve the multi-headed monster that is microsoft today, or whether they are going to break it up into constituent parts. i know that the temptation is great to try and compete head to head with google on the plan to totally annihilate each other, but i wonder if that makes any sense. google docs has been around for six years and i've never encountered it in a corporate setting…

Post by gregd » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 1:53 PM UTC

tuananh wrote: post #118

rrrrtttt wrote: post #111

Let me tell you an anecdote why I think Ballmer was incompetent and largely responsible for the sorry state that Microsoft is in at the moment. Yesterday there was a long article in the Israeli newspaper Globes about the success of the Israeli adware companies. Israel has in recent years become a world leader in software that installs unwanted toolbars on your elderly dad and mom's PC and "monetizes" them until they…

Can you provide the source about the part " Microsoft actually has affiliate agreements with these companies to take a slice of the profits"?

Post by 1337biz » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #109

mathattack wrote: post #7

Huge 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…

Thank God. (Speaking as an ex-Microsoftie). Hopefully MS will lose the "we need to put Windows on everything, including embedded systems" attitude. Windows is a horrible bloated mess barely capable of successfully running on a tablet PC, much less smaller things. (And if you've ever had to /build/ Windows . . . OMG. OMFG). There are core bits of Windows that are great; the I/O system is incredibly well done. Then the…

Post by mathattack » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

RougeFemme wrote: post #120

mathattack wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"While many called for his ouster for many years, I never saw a single leader emerge at Microsoft who could fill his shoes or the needs of this lofty position. Looking at the available options today, I still don't." This in and of itself is a failure of leadership. If you can't groom a leader to replace you in 15 years, that's a problem. Some could argue it's deliberate (defending their job) others might argue that h…

Not disagreeing, just clarifying. . .do you mean that the last 2 presidents and Bloomberg should have been/should be more involved in grooming folks within their respective parties to take their places?